Lifestyle
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Plant Your Own ‘Smarties'
To fully appreciate the flavour of fresh peas at their absolute peak, there is no better way but to grow them yourself. You’ll have to wait for next winter, though, to try it.
4 min |
Spring 2021
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Where The Wildflowers Bloom
It’s that time of year again: over the past month Mother Nature has staged breathtaking displays of wildflowers in Namaqualand. Marie Labuschagne from Alberton recalls a previous flower tour.
1 min |
Spring 2021
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Where Ghosts Linger
The vast Karoo landscape is not only hauntingly beautiful, but it is seemingly also haunted by a great many spirits. Madeleine Barnard went on a ghost hunt.
10+ min |
Winter 2021
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A Splash Of England At The Klip
At the turn of the previous century, a delightful fragment of rural England rooted itself among the willows on the banks of the Klip River, south of Johannesburg. Welcome to Henley on Klip, where you can expect a few pleasant surprises.
10+ min |
Winter 2021
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A Snake In The Sugar Cane
You hear the best stories in the bar of a small town or golf club – useful to know if you’re a young reporter. Anna Kemp recalls an evening of endless and terrifying tales about snakes.
5 min |
Winter 2021
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Garlic Galore The Pungent Smell Of Success
Three months after lockdown was implemented last year, dealing a nasty blow to her business, Santie Marais from Laingsburg took her chances and bought a successful small enterprise that elevates Karoo garlic to salivating new heights.
6 min |
Winter 2021
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What Can You Do For The Karoo?
When you’ve had enough of life in the city, what do you do? Some people pack their bags and move to the platteland, where a completely different – but also at times challenging – lifestyle awaits. Artist Cobus van Bosch and journalist Madeleine Barnard can attest to that.
8 min |
Winter 2021
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Where You Hear The Earth's Heartbeat
In the folds of the Nuweveld Mountains, about 70km southwest of Beaufort West, Douwe and Liezl Vlok have realised their dream: to live simply and to tread the earth as lightly as they can. Let’s go for a walk in their footsteps.
10+ min |
Winter 2021
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Sweet rewads
Last year, amid the soul-destroying drought and lockdown, two madcap yet deeply devout women from Merweville borrowed money from their husbands to buy a nougat business. They christened it Karoo Blessings… and lo and behold, a mere three months later these two“CEOs”were able to to fully repay their debt.
10 min |
Winter 2021
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The Travelling Willow
Her love of architecture, history, travel and for her mother’s treasured BlueWillow collection inspired Sarah-Jane Jordaan, a young architect and illustrator from De Doorns, to use her pen to take this much-loved tree on a trip around the world.
6 min |
Spring 2020
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The Art Of Living
Artists Tamar Mason and Mark Attwood moved their studio from Johannesburg to the Lowveld in 2002. Step by step, they set up a sustainable lifestyle, and proved to naysayers that the move was not “financial suicide”.
10 min |
Spring 2020
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A Dog's Life
What would a garden or cosy living room be without a dog – whether it works for its food or simply keeps its owner company? Artist and illustrator Piet Grobler* shares the insights he has gained over the years of living in South Africa, England and now Portugal.
5 min |
Spring 2020
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Snowdrops And Shelter
Amid the isolation of the national lockdown and unprecedented upheaval in the magazine industry, there is one place that helps keep celebrated media doyenne Jane Raphaely sane in our changing world…
1 min |
Spring 2020
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Tesselaarsdal - The Valley Of Faith, Hope & Love
Tesselaarsdal is an Overberg village that doesn’t as much as feature on some GPS apps, and you won't find it in the latest road atlas. If you do sniff it out – in the mountains between Caledon and Hermanus – you’ll be bowled over by the scenic beauty and the strong sense of community.
10+ min |
Spring 2020
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Step By Step To Good Health
For centuries, writers, composers, philosophers and ordinary people have harnessed the healing power of walking to nourish body and soul. It’s free medicine available to everyone – all you have to do is start… and continue, every single day. One foot in front of the other.
10+ min |
Spring 2020
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Oh, Romantic, Rundown Platteland?
You are romanticising the platteland. This is a complaint we sometimes hear when readers return from a weekend getaway at a“once well-maintained and spotless” town, which is now “shockingly dirty and neglected”. But, as Johan van Zyl heard at this year’sWoordfees in Stellenbosch, decay occurs everywhere in the world – and the“romantic” picture painted in glossy magazines is not so much a problem as it is a solution.
5 min |
Spring 2020
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Home Brew From The Cederberg To Your Teacup
About 12000 tonnes of rooibos tea is exported worldwide each year, and it all comes from a small region in the Cederberg. Evan Naudé visited a farm near Clanwilliam to learn about the process, from stalks under the scythe to the teabag in your cup.
7 min |
Spring 2020
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The marrow of life
Few other crops can be cooked in so many different ways and at so many stages – from flower to finger-sized to monster-sized – as baby marrows.
3 min |
Spring 2020
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Horse sense
Man and horse have been sharing a special bond for more than 5000 years, be it on farmlands, on battlefields, on the road or in the sports arena. Today, some of these fine animals even play an important role in therapy programmes. But keeping horses is not a decision to be taken lightly. Here’s what you need to know first.
10 min |
Spring 2020
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Higher ground
Springbok flanker Pieter-Steph duToit has the world at his feet, especially after his performance at the RugbyWorld Cup in Japan*. But his heart will always belong to the Swartland. Kloovenburg, Riebeek Valley, Swartland
1 min |
Autumn 2020
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Stretch Your Legs at Biesiesvlei
In North West, on that long road between Gauteng and Namibia, lies Biesiesvlei. Blink and you might miss it. But a farm stall with a difference invites you to take a closer look.
3 min |
Autumn 2017
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Betta And The Blue Bus
Betta Steyn and her son left behind the “comfort and money” of Gauteng for a baby-blue bus 17 years ago in order to learn from the Kalahari Bushmen how “dangerous but intensely good” the quiet life can be.
7 min |
Summer 2016/2017
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The Price of “Progress”
We tend not to realise the true cost of development until it’s too late. Rupert Koopman laments the fact that, as you read this, someone out there is busy with a tractor, brush cutter, lawnmower or bulldozer, making the world a less interesting place than it used to be.
4 min |
Autumn 2017
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Heidelberg Refuge at the foot of Suikerbosrand
The town of Heidelberg in Gauteng, with its many historical landmarks, is close enough to the City of Gold to commute yet far enough to offer genuine platteland peace and quiet.
10+ min |
Autumn 2017
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Plains of Peace
Few South Africans don’t have a soft spot for neighbouring Namibia: it’s a country of plains and dunes and not many people, a place that tugs at the heart strings and has visitors returning again and again.
5 min |
Autumn 2017
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Know Your Onions
Never grown your own vegetables? The allium family is a great way to start. Known for their wonderful culinary uses, onions, leeks, chives, shallots and garlic also have major benefits for the ecosystem that is your garden.
8 min |
Summer 2016/2017
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Volvo's Spaceship
Volvo’s XC90 is South Africa’s Car of the Year for 2016. Now that we’ve driven one on back roads, exploring the countryside in four different provinces, we can say unequivocally: what an impressive vehicle!
3 min |
Summer 2016/2017
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The Death Knell For The School Bell
Long distances, falling standards, bad memories of boarding-school life and the high cost of private schooling are just a few reasons why increasing numbers of platteland parents are choosing to educate their children at home. Alette de Beer takes a look at this development.
9 min |